December First Editions Club Pick

New York, NY: Riverhead Books (December 3, 2024)

First Edition. Signed.

New in dust jacket.

From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.

Weike Wang is the author of the novels Chemistry and Joan is Okay. She is the recipient of a PEN/Hemingway Award, a Whiting award, and a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Best American Short Stories, among other publications. She lives in New York City and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Barnard College.